CHICAGO — Total retail store shopper traffic during the first week of the partial government shutdown decreased 7.5% compared with a year ago, according to a report released Friday.
During the second week — from Oct. 6-12 — foot traffic decreased 7.1%, according to the report, which was conducted by ShopperTrak, based here. The Washington, D.C., area saw an even greater decrease, with an 11.4% decline in year-over-year shopper traffic the week of Oct. 6-12.
“The furlough of hundreds of thousands of federal workers caused an inevitable decline in consumer visits to retail stores in the first half of October,” said ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin. “We expect that it will take some time and revised strategies for retailers to recover from the impact the government shutdown had on sales and store traffic.”
Traffic had started to decline before the shutdown, the report said, with a decline of 4.7% and 5% in the third and fourth weeks of September, respectively, compared with 2012.
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